Barbara Lee is almost certainly the victor in the Special Election to appoint a Mayor to finish the remainder of Sheng Thao's term held on April 15. In the current count of about 94K votes, Lee leads Taylor by around 5k votes. Lee holds slightly more than 50% of the total votes, which means that Ranked Choice Voting [RCV] tallies won't be necessary if her lead holds there over the next update next week. Although election-day postmarked ballots have five days by state law to arrive at the Registrar to be considered valid, a majority have likely already arrived, and all drop box and in-person votes have been counted. The current turnout is about 36%—that's low for a regular election, but typical for a special local election with no state or national races.
Though the loser by a large margin of over five percentage points, Loren Taylor appeared to be a more likely winner after an initial vote tranche consisting of about 44K ballots on Tuesday night around 8pm. In that first tranche, Taylor led by by 4 percentage points. About an hour later reality began to intrude into the scene when the next tranche shrank the gap considerably to a little over 2%. In the second tranche of 4.2K votes, Lee led Taylor by an astonishing 15 points. That same pattern was replicated closely in the third tranche released Friday evening, with Lee getting 54.7% of the additional 45K votes and Taylor getting only 41.5%.
The Alameda County Registrar's precinct map shows that Lee was popular in most of the flatlands and low foothill areas, many of which are still predominantly Black, Brown, working class and working poor. Taylor did well in upper hills areas synonymous in Oakland for generations with wealth, whiteness and conservative viewpoints.
In a statement this morning acknowledging the sense of finality to this count, Taylor conceded the race to Lee.
Lee Likely Has a Straight 50%+1 Win, But Also Wins with RCV
Under California law, the Registrar must honor ballots that arrive within a 5-day time frame after April 15 if they have an election day postmark. But the likelihood of there being a remaining number of Mayoral votes that could significantly affect the current outcome is low—the majority of mail-ballots likely arrived by Friday, and all drop box ballots have been counted. If Lee's 50% + 1 victory persists in further vote updates, RCV will not be a factor in calculating the winner of the Mayoral election. Even so, running the current vote tally through RCV doesn't significantly change the outcome in the current vote tally. Lee earns 53% of the viable RCV votes in the current calculation and wins the election by 52.7% to 47.3, a 5 percentage point difference.
Lopsided District Voting Patterns
In a breakdown of returned ballots to date, hills-heavy areas of District 4 and 1 are overwhelmingly represented in returned votes. Those districts were far closer to typical regular election turnouts, with 44.8% and 51.6% of registered voters casting votes respectively. District 5 had the lowest turnout so far, with 24% of registered voters voting—only 6k voters. The aggregate votes of the three East Oakland districts represent a little over half of the turnout of D1 and D4 combined. District 3, which has borne the brunt of Oakland's gentrification over the past two decades, also had relatively low voter turnout.
Mirage of Taylor's Electoral Competitiveness Fades As Votes Near Total
As in the last two city wide [and county] elections, voters who favor progressive-branded politics again seemed to prefer to mail or deposit their ballots late in the timeframe, while voters who prefer right wing messaging appeared to vote early. That first vote drop, consisting entirely of conservative-heavy early ballots on Tuesday gave Taylor the illusory appearance of performing far better than he actually has. Given the character of the later vote tranches, Lee's lead could actually grow in the likely last count which won't be released until Friday, according to the Registrar.
Charlene Wang and Measure A Prevail
Due to capacity, Oakland Observer has not focused on the D2 race, but Wang has clearly won there with a commanding lead, 59% to 40% as of this writing. Measure A, the .5% sales tax, has also won with 65% of the city-wide vote.
City Can Certify Registrar's Count at a Special Meeting
In this election, the City Council can certify the election results in a special meeting called with three day notice. The Registrar has 30 days by law to certify the vote, but is likely to do so much earlier, given the relatively small vote count. Lee and Wang could be seated within several weeks, but it's unlikely they will be in their seats until sometime in May.
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